As well as directing Britain’s war effort, Winston Churchill had another seemingly crucial matter to attend to during the second world war – the appointment of a new provost of Eton College.
Four months after the 1944 D-day landings and less than a month after the failed operation by British airborne troops to secure the Rhine crossing at Arnhem, the prime minister found himself presented with the shock resignation of the incumbent provost, Lord Quickswood.
